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Emma Lee hadn’t realized that she was superstitious. Yet for days after discovering Emily’s grave, she felt a dull dread that made her feel somehow hollow, like the aftermath of an adrenaline rush. A headache lurked behind her eyes, unnoticeable most of the time, but always there when she’d sit down to read, or lie down to rest. Her mouth was often dry. Her hands sometimes trembled. She had trouble focusing on her books, so she’d switched to lighter fiction: YA, humor—even romance, for heaven’s sake.
In the hopes that “more data” would ease the dread, Emma Lee searched for information about, as she called her, “my homonymous friend.”
She found a national gravesite registry on the web. Emily Brown was listed, with a photo of the grave marker. But where other entries often named parents, spouse, siblings, and children, or referenced old newspaper articles or obituaries, Emily’s page was blank, aside from a “virtual flower” left by “G.G.,” one of the contributors to the site.
There were no other Browns listed in Redwood Memorial Gardens.
G.G.’s bio pointed to a local library that housed the town’s historical records. G.G. had apparently spent hours upon hours there, working with one of the “WONDERFUL volunteers, my good friend NANCY” to transcribe mortuary lists, to restore old maps and books, along with a long list of other clearly time-consuming activities, all on her own time.
Emma Lee followed the link to the library and found a list of historical documents: various hospital birth records, church marriage rosters, mortuary indexes. The library offered access to tax records, draft registrations, personnel files from defunct companies. Proceedings of the Freemasons. Commitments of the insane.
She clicked through one of the only live links in the list, for an ancestry site. After a frustratingly long hunt for her library card, she managed to log in. She struck out with the U.S. Census; Emily had been born after the latest available records allowed by privacy laws.
She clicked on an Obituary Index and entered Emily’s name, date of death, and the county where she was buried. Over 18,000 results—unlikely, Emma Lee thought. She fiddled with some sliders, and narrowed the search: Exact name, 1961, lived in California. She found two entries from a nearby county. It turned out that they were for the same 57-year-old sister of seven, mother of two.
She held off on the Seven-Day Free Trial for viewing the actual obituary, since this clearly wasn’t Emily.
She gave up in about two weeks, much more quickly than she’d have expected. After all her work, she still knew nothing more about Emily Brown than her dates of birth and death and her place of burial. She wasn’t sure if she’d exhausted every avenue, but she’d certainly done everything she could think of doing herself.
Well, almost everything. She had dropped by the historical library, but had discovered that it was only open by appointment. Several times, she’d started an email requesting to meet, but she’d always clenched up. She couldn’t figure out how to explain why she was interested. She could have said that she wondered if she and Emily were related, she supposed, but she knew they weren’t. Brown was a common enough name, but she knew her ancestors hailed from the South, and that her family had been the first (and only) of the clan to move West. She couldn’t bring herself to lie. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to waste a volunteer’s time on what she knew to be superstitious nonsense.
She’d considered hiring a professional genealogist, at one point, but even the cheap ones were expensive. Not a luxury for the infrequently employed.
Besides, the tension had, thankfully, started to fade. This didn’t make sense to her; she figured the tension would increase the longer she went without learning anything. But, as with most everything else she’d experienced, her body could only hold onto the stress for so long. Things eased back to normal.
Mayumi never brought up Emma Lee’s premonition, though she didn’t change the subject when Emma Lee would complain about her fruitless research. And she agreed to accompany Emma Lee to the grave both times she was asked, leaving yellow roses they’d clipped from their neighbor’s unkempt rose bush, which hung over the fence and dropped petals into Mr. Matsuo’s yard.
Emma Lee trimmed the grass around Emily’s gravestone with pruning shears, and used a small dust broom to sweep the cuttings aside. She wanted to clean it more deeply, but the Internet was filled with warnings against that. She lay on the grass, head next to the gravestone, a long-stemmed rose between the name and dates, and took a selfie with her phone.
She continued wandering the cemetery, reading names and dates and epitaphs, but she ended each session settling in the grass next to Emily’s headstone. She would sit for long periods, watching as individuals or families would park in the driveway and trek across to visit a loved one’s grave. They would lay out bunches of flowers, or toys, or pinwheels, stones, seashells, candles, small flags, angel figurines. She knew that Emily didn’t feel anything; “They’re dead,” the bent old guy had said, and she believed that. Yet she still felt sad that no one else ever visited Emily’s grave.
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Story by Greg Kemble. Art and animation by John David Irvine (thejohnirvine.com).
In addition to reading the series on the blog, you can enjoy “Emily’s Grave” in a few other formats (you’ll find links to all of these versions at the Emily’s Grave (a story) page):
- Videobook (YouTube) – I commissioned my friend and former student John David Irvine—now an award-winning animator—to create an atmospheric animation to accompany the audio version of the story.
- Audiobook (mp3) – Recorded by the author (that’s me!). You can listen to it on the blog or download it.
- Print version (PDF) – If you prefer to read written text, you can view or download a PDF version.
Tip Jar – Pay what you like, if you like.
A-and there’s merch! If you like John’s cover art, check out the shirts, coffee mugs, stickers (and more!) at Redbubble.
About the author (that’s me!)
Close-to-retirement English prof.
Occasional musician, blogger, and writer.
Mildly Introverted, mostly harmless.
About the artist
Multi award-winning artist/animator/filmmaker John David Irvine is known for his unique style of handcrafted animation and darkly surreal imagery. His cryptic work explores identity, queerness, and generational trauma, wading into the everyday horrors that undulate beneath the veneer of the mundane. His award-winning short film COMMON MONSTERS is currently being expanded into his feature film directorial debut.
Check him out at https://thejohnirvine.com.
“Emily’s Grave” © 2021 (text) and © 2023 (audio and video) by Greg Kemble are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0